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During my PhD studies, I published a journal article (1 of total 4) in a prestigious journal of my field. My PhD advisor wants to commercialize my PhD work and wanted me to help him without willing to credit me for my efforts. I found his emails harassing, malicious and blackmailing and have stopped responding him by directing his emails to spam folder. I have long left his lab after getting PhD and am currently working in industry. Suddenly, I received an email from the Journal that a corrigendum to my paper is submitted with me included as an author. I think there are some new experimental results that my advisor want to publish. Should I write to the journal and request to withdraw my authorship from the corrigendum?

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    A correction to a paper is unlikely to be new experimental results. Request a copy of the corrigendum from the editor.
    – Jon Custer
    Oct 24, 2017 at 18:38
  • I have accessed the corrigendum that have resulted in the following question link. Please, have a look and make suggestions.
    – Anonymous
    Nov 1, 2017 at 6:04

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I concur with the comment. This would be a highly unusual way to add new experimental results. Surely if the person was interested in applying or extending your work and had new experimental results they would publish on their own!

I would email them and ask what the contents of the changes are. Ethically, it's up to you if you think that you shouldn't be listed as an author on the corrigendum. There has been discussion about corrigendum authorship in the past, see here. The answer at that link agrees with what I've seen in practice: corrigendum authorship is identical to the original paper authorship even if not everyone worked on it.

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    Agreed, and I would also suggest tactfully flagging the situation to the journal e.g. "Please be aware that Prof Jones and I are no longer in contact, so I was unaware of this corrigendum - I appreciate the opportunity to review and sign off any material to be published under my name". This should be standard policy for any academic publisher but unfortunately I can testify from personal experience that sometimes things slip through the cracks.
    – GB supports the mod strike
    Oct 25, 2017 at 0:04
  • I have accessed the corrigendum that have resulted in the following question link. Please, have a look and make suggestions.
    – Anonymous
    Nov 1, 2017 at 6:05

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